Defense Watch Watch: Monday at the National Defense HQ

 Current head of CF lied about knowing about another senior officer's sexcrime

In other words, it is Monday. But when you dig into the details a bit:

Despite allegedly knowing of the allegation, Acting Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Wayne Eyre confirmed Trevor Cadieu as the new army commander following the approval of Cadieu’s promotion to lieutenant general on Aug. 8.

In a statement to this newspaper, the Department of National Defence said Eyre only found out about the allegations against Cadieu when he was informed by military police on Sept. 5.

But the alleged victim, as well as an email from Cadieu himself, tell a different story.

In an email sent to his alleged victim on July 11, Cadieu writes that Eyre had been informed by other officers about the allegations. “The CDS can’t ignore what he’s been told,” Cadieu wrote to the woman, a former Canadian Forces member. “Naturally, as painful as it is to write this, the CDS needs to makes (sic) decisions about my ability to continue to serve.”

[...]

In an interview with this newspaper, the alleged victim said she had been trying to move on with her life and originally had no intention to go to military police.

But when the alleged victim received the unsolicited messages from Cadieu and from another officer questioning what she intended to do about the allegations, she said she felt bullied and decided to contact an official in Eyre’s office. According to the alleged victim, that was done July 14 in a phone call that lasted several hours involving an official in Eyre’s office. The woman said her intention at that time was not to file a formal complaint against Cadieu but to raise her concerns about the officer since he was being considered as the new army commander.

So: the victim wanted to move on with her life, and for several reasons didn't contact the Military Police about the [sex crime, undefined]

When suddenly Cadieu and some other offical start talking at her, she goes to Eire's office and gives an extensive statement on the sex crime, as that's the sort of think that should be known before making the guy head of the Canadian Army

She was ignored

The alleged victim later learned that Eyre was proceeding anyways to install Cadieu as the new head of the army. As a result, the woman went to the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service on Sept. 4 to provide a statement and file a complaint against Cadieu.

Eire then lied about having known anything beforehand, saying this was the first he heard of sex complaints against Cadieu and probably "why didn't the silly moo report this in official channels?! This is basically her fault"

The woman and her family have asked they not be identified for fear of retribution. There have been comments posted online about her mental state and her alleged motives. Similar comments have been made during official meetings at the Department of National Defence (DND) headquarters, this newspaper has confirmed through multiple defense sources.

So, that's why

Caught red handed, Eire just sticks to his first lie, which happened after the victim tried to take the high road for the second time

The woman said she felt betrayed after the Canadian Forces and the DND distributed Cadieu’s statement to national news outlets in which he denied any wrongdoing. She took that as the military and DND leadership officially indicating their support for the lieutenant general despite an ongoing investigation.

When asked about its distribution of Cadieu’s statement of denial to the news media, DND acknowledged that “in hindsight, it was the wrong decision.”

Yeah, I know, you got caught

In his statement to journalists, Cadieu said although the allegations being made against him are false, “they must be investigated thoroughly to expose the truth.”

“I know that these false claims will, as intended, create doubts about my ability to lead in this environment,” he added.

So now Cadieu is lying about the outreach and doing in public what he'd apparently been doing in private for a long time, cool, cool

Cadieu noted he has voluntarily provided information to the CFNIS and intends to co-operate fully with their investigation.

It says a fair bit that Cadieu thinks "cooperating with an investigation into his own misconduct" is somehow laudable

This is the second time in four months Eire has been caught lying about the investigations into officers that he recently promoted anyway and was then caught red-handed thanks to the media investigating